Thing is - after that "short term" period is up they will go an sign someone else. They already tried to sign a striker from AC Milan for big money - Rafael Leao. And were offered Memphis but he didn't want to terminate his contract. He will be restricted to 20 minutes sub appearances and domestic cup games. Will that be enough to fully maximise his development? I doubt it. But the 5 subs thing means he could be a good "finisher" for chelsea with his pace. But I wouldn't be surprised to see him out on loan either the second half of this season or next (or both) 6 years is a long time though. With a couple more loans he might be ready. And if Tuchel is gone in that time then that will help him as you'd have to expect the next manager would be more positive than Tuchel. it is difficult to imagine one that could possibly be as defensive and negative
One of the thing I picked up on in the press conference was that Ralph referred to his options for 'the middle three' as: Ward-Prowse Lavia Diallo Maitland-Niles Aribo Stu Armstrong I'm not a fan of the Barkley links, but I genuinely wouldn't hate signing Juan Mata on a manageable deal for a season if he wanted to remain in England. Sure, he wouldn't be able to fit into high pressing elements at this stage of his career but he oozes class as a 10, has a high football IQ and is well-known to be the model pro.
Interesting - I would have thought Stu was considered one of the more advanced 3. Guess it depends on who he is in there with. Time will tell
These 6 are listed as our midfielders on transfermarkt in their colour coding. It lists us as 3 GKs, 8 Defenders, 6 Midfielders and 8 Attackers (including Theo and Redmond, the latter of whom might go. The former, most likely not) So pretty much two per position (including the long term injury absentee in Livramento). The bonus is that several of the players can play in several positions either within their category (such as KWP and Larios) or across multiple (such as AMN, Aribo and Djenepo). There is some nice balance. You can still see why we wanted someone new for one of the 3 "Attacker" positions but we will see how it goes.
I went to school in Beastleigh and my French master was chair of the twinning committee If we fancied a bit of a doss then we’d appoint someone to ask him about progress on this matter when he came in for the lesson Fell for it every time as he was obsessed with it and could spend half a lesson talking about it if we feigned interest appropriately I wonder if he’s been involved … although he would be over 100 now, so probably not
Ah, now there’s a Saint. Didn’t really have him in his prime but what a player & character. Just Brilliant.
If true, it really shows the sheer lack of creativity in the transfer dealings of a lot of the big clubs.. Lavia was an extremely highly-rated prospect. He would have been a known quantity for any youth scout of any top-flight club. But teams like Chelsea aren't going to buy a player for the first team who isn't 'proven'...but 4 PL games is enough to move him into the 'proven' bucket, and those players are worth £50m. I swear, the big club that realizes that you can actually play young players, without farming them out endlessly first, will lap the field.
Absolutely. I've wanted us to do this for years, because the roadmap already exists. Dortmund, Ajax, basically every top Portuguese club...the model works, and elite young talents have proven able to go toe-to-toe with more veteran squads both in league and continental play. And the teams that establish that reputation translate that into being highly desirable destinations for future elite talents. It's basically nothing but cowardice that has prevented a team from adopting that model in the PL, and I'm glad we're the club that had the guts to go for it.
Obviously I am glad we kept him and think it was the right call, but it would have been brilliant business. Sign a player for £12m, sell him about a month later for £50m a 416% increase. Just goes to show how bad the recruitment is at some of the clubs with big budgets - all it took was 3 good performances in the premier league and Chelsea went from not interested to willing to splash £50m.
